30 Oct 2009

NZ sharemarket rebounds

6:42 pm on 30 October 2009

The New Zealand sharemarket has rebounded on the back of strong gains on Wall St.

The benchmark NZX 50 index rose 20 points, or 0.6%, to 32.15 on turnover of $154 million.

Fletcher Building was up 1 cent to $8.23, Telecom 2 cents to $2.61, and Contact Energy 1 cent to $6.23.

Sky City Entertainment rose 5 cents to $3.45 after telling shareholders it's still on track for double digit earnings growth in the current financial year, after a strong performance in the September quarter.

Fisher & Paykel Appliances was up 1 cent to $0.64 after writing down the value of its US assets by up to $75m.

NZX rose 11 cents to $8.00 after its nine-month operating profit rose 8% to $14.7m.

The Warehouse rose 5 cents to $4.49. Sky Network TV also rose, by 10 cents to $4.85.

Auckland International Airport was down 3 cents to $2.00.

Across the Tasman, the Australian 200 index was also up, gaining 68 points, or 1.5%, to 46.42 by mid-afternoon.

In currency markets, the NZ dollar was trading about 5pm at 73.29 US cents, 79.89 Australian, 44.2 pence, 69.92 yen and 0.493 euro. The TWI was 65.75.